BRISTOL, Connecticut, U.S.A. — This student can’t get away from the OJ sensation that took over her TV. She went to school this morning and in Law and Justice class took a quiz on the many ways OJ could go free.
In English, she had a list of 20 vocab words and they were all legal terms. The words produced a 45-minute discussion about OJ’s trial and the evidence against him.
The last thing she wanted to talk about while half changed in a locker room full of other girls was the stabbing and near decapitation of O.J. Simpson’s ex-wife.
Just in time for lunch, she heard the gory details again.
If it was anyone else charged other than OJ, there wouldn’t be half as much conversation. (After all, maybe the investigator set him up.)
She went home to do her homework (all of it had OJ undertones) and turned on Ricki Lake. But she got a better laugh when, in the middle of Fresh Prince, the OJ trial came up again. It was a sad laugh.
A typical conversation starts like this: “Hear about OJ lately?”
“Why, what do they say now?”
And then the opinions fly: “Well, I think he did it.”
“But you never know, with all those sickos out in California, like Manson….”
“Or maybe the detective set him up.”
(This student wouldn’t compare OJ to Manson, yet both of them have worshipful followers.)
This student doesn’t involve herself in judging OJ’s guilt. She does know that he did beat his wife (typical of a hero’s private life).
She is interested in the face that the standards of prison life have been raised in OJ’s honor.
Justice is blind, and this student wishes either she were deaf or more people were mute.
Rose Mamie Kowalchuk is a Reporter in Connecticut for Youth Journalism International.
